


The Education of Miss Amelia Havisham

by rosncrntz



Category: Dickensian (TV)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings Realisation, Longing, Pre-Series, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 08:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12954846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosncrntz/pseuds/rosncrntz
Summary: Mr Jaggers is well aware of what is written in Havisham's will; he knows full well that Miss Amelia Havisham will one day run the brewery. So, therefore, an education is in order, to teach the young woman important matters of business. A very practical education. And, yet, it turns out to be an education for all involved.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a rather cold day in April, but bright. Though, one would never have known the brightness of the day and the clearness of the cold sky, if one was privy to the meeting of Miss Amelia Havisham and Mr Jaggers – the family lawyer – in the latter’s office. The curtains were thick, and drawn a good way across the windows, so that the only light of day came in a thin strip. And the dark wooden panelling, dark wooden furniture, dark velvet plush, and dark corners led to an atmosphere more becoming of a day in December.

But, Amelia admitted, it was entirely cosy. And it smelled of parchment, musty old books, coals, and Mr Jagger’s perfume. Warm and clean.

The pair had taken to occasional meetings, with the intention of giving Miss Havisham an education. The education would be in matters of her father’s business which – someday – she may have a _small_ share in the profits of. Of course, it was only Mr Jaggers who knew, having organised her father’s will, the extent of Miss Havisham’s eventual involvement in the family business, were her father to shuffle off his mortal coil (which Mr Jaggers feared would not be long, his illness being as it was). It felt a thing of great importance for Mr Jaggers to give this young woman an education in matters of business: it gave him a great sense of purpose, and the soft warmth that comes with doing something actually _good_. Goodness in his profession was rare to come by.

And these meetings were entirely pleasurable for him. Or, at least, he insisted they were kept that way. If he allowed his weakness to give way to _interfering_ notions, then the pleasure of these meetings could rapidly decline. Therefore: no feelings in the office.

Only quiet study, well-judged teaching, and easy companionship.

“That bowl,” Amelia began, unsteadily, nodding towards a metal dish in the corner of the room, which sat very neatly on a small, dark wooden table, and beside a neatly pressed white towel, “Do you use it to wash your hands?”

Jaggers paused, lifting his eyes warily from the pages of his diary. He had given the young woman a page of notations to read on the previous month’s earnings, and was anticipating a minute or two of contemplative reading on her part which would give him a moment of silence in which to think. But she was not looking at the paper, which sat flimsily on the desk, but was looking at the bowl in the corner of the room.

“I do,” Mr Jaggers replied. Amelia nodded. There was a sticky silence, and the turning of a leaf of paper made a noise like an oncoming storm. He could feel the shaking of her breath in the air. Mr Jaggers could not abide that thunderous silence. “Why do you ask?”

“It is just… we were eating supper, a few nights ago, and Arthur and Papa began to talk of a habit you have… to wash your hands during your meetings with them.”

“They mocked it, I suppose?”

Amelia fought a blush in her cheeks. It was true that, in fact, the topic had been met with more than a little merry chuckling and chaffing over the dinnerplates, but she could not divulge this knowledge to Mr Jaggers: the target of such slander. She could not look at him as she replied,

“Of course not. It was simply mentioned.”

Mr Jaggers was not a fool, of course, and being a little older than Amelia Havisham had its advantages in both wisdom and misanthropy. He knew that the habit was begging to be ridiculed. But he would not let the lady know how he saw through her lies as if they were gossamer, and so he said,

“Do they find it troubling?”

Something in the tone of his voice seemed strange to Amelia. The question itself seemed to suggest reform or revision; it is a question asked by a man seeking to change himself in the bettering of others. And, yet, his tone was uncaring and vague. There was no sense that the answer would even change the slightest hair on his head. She did not respect such stubborn unchangeability in a man, or any person, but she thought that, perhaps, if Mr Jaggers were to change himself, she would like him less, and so she could readily forgive the flaw.

“I do not think so.”

“Good,” he said, tipping his head forward in a way of gratitude for a compliment she had not paid. Then, he took his wire-frame glasses from the end of his nose and placed them delicately on the desk, all the while saying, earnestly, “May I ask, Miss Havisham, why you have thought to mention this to me?”

“Well, that is what I was getting on to, you see… well, I have never seen you do it. We do meet, often, to discuss my father’s business. And not once, in all this time, have you washed your hands.”

Jaggers blinked. He tapped his finger on the desk, and drew his sense up into his throat to ask,

“Haven’t I?” There was something trembling in the words.

“No,” she replied, simply, smiling meekly at him, “And I think I would remember,” she continued, unable to fight her giggle as she did so. She felt a tugging at her gut, the guilt from laughing at her friend, but he was not offended, and gave a short huff and a wry smile which she knew was as much laughter as she would get, and she was thankful for it.

“Well, it seems you catch me at moments when my hands are spotless!” he cried, raising two hands which were, indeed, spotless. Amelia laughed at his jibe, but then became serious again,

“But my Papa and brother say that you have no need of the washing when they see you do it. They see it as more of a… compulsion.” Her words were carefully selected but, still, every choice seemed utterly wrong. She felt that she was making a fool of herself, blackening herself in the soot from the fireplace, making herself dislikeable, and there was barely the passing of two moments and a glance at his uncomfortable look before she hastily gushed, “You must excuse me, Mr Jaggers, I am being so very presumptuous!”

“No!” Jaggers cried. Whenever he rose his voice, even just the smallest fracture, it signalled an overwhelming passion in the man powerful enough to strike Amelia dumb. Though it could hardly be called a shout, it made her almost breathless. “No, do not apologise for it. It is good that you are curious. One should be curious of one’s fellow man. It is a healthy way to be.” He rose from his seat. The leather creaked, Amelia could hear it. And he walked around the desk that was separating them, and stood with his back against the bookshelves. He hadn’t the courage to sit with her when there was not the obstacle of a metre of wood between them. “In truth, I do wash my hands as a compulsion. I have found, and I expect you will – too – when you become better acquainted with the world of men, that men of a certain class and _education_ often pick up their individual quirks from their days at school. Eton, Harrow, what have you, all give way to the need for coping mechanisms,” he explained, a little bitterly.

“Coping mechanisms? You mean you did not enjoy school?”

“I enjoyed it far more than most.”

“But you did not enjoy it particularly?”

She was prying as a child pries. Digging their fingers into the bud of a flower to open it, without knowledge of destroying the bloom. Curiosity leading them to pluck the wings from a butterfly, without knowing they had killed the creature. Mr Jaggers did not know how to respond to this, without bearing his heart, open and bleeding, to her and letting her know rather too much of his soul. There must have been something in the agonies of his looks and the biting of his tongue that prompted Amelia to continue as if she hadn’t asked the question,

“So, you have washed your hands as a… compulsion… for many years now?” she asked, changing the subject only a little, whilst still pursuing her line of interest.

“Yes.”

“But that does not answer why I have never seen you do it!” she exclaimed, turning in her chair to face Mr Jaggers more directly. God, the sound of her silvery laughter was excruciating. It seemed to have poison in its sound and, dropped in his ear, it would posset his very blood. Jaggers gave a sudden and calculated laugh and said,

“Is it something you are particularly keen on seeing, Miss Havisham?”

He made it sound ever so silly, when he phrased it this way, and she fell into a guilty and bashful silence, bowing her head to look at the clasping and scratching of her pale hands in her lap. They moved frantically. She was not the only person in the room watching those white hands.

Mr Jaggers knew precisely why he had never washed his hands in the metal bowl, lathering up the soap into soothing bubbles, scrubbing, and scraping around his nails until they were sore, and wrapping the water around his wrists. His meetings with Miss Amelia Havisham inflicted many a thing on the poor lawyer: an unsteady flutter of the heartbeat, a headache, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, a frustration, a confusion. But they were never what so many of his official meetings became: unclean. There was never anything unsavoury or guilty. He was never distressed to the point of washing.

Every other person led him to wash his hands. But Amelia Havisham could not.

“I am sorry, Miss Havisham, I have embarrassed you,” he said, taking a step away from the bookcase, awkwardly shuffling, and turning his back on her, pretending to be looking for a book, when, in fact, he could not bear to be seen by her for another moment. His eyes flitted from leather-bound spine to leather-bound spine and he waited anxiously for a sound from her.

“No, Mr Jaggers, it is I who have embarrassed myself.”

“No.”

His voice was dim and indistinct, made worse by how he faced away from her, and her head strained to hear his words. She knitted her fingers in her lap, and bit the inside of her cheek. Suddenly, and with some considerable force, he turned himself around to face the woman, and declared,

“Then we must move on. I have a paper, in my drawer somewhere, that gives a brief insight into the daily workings. I will try to find it for you.” There was an assuring clarity to his voice, now, that lulled Amelia back into comfort. She smiled as he walked back around the desk, opened the drawer, and she could hear the ruffling of papers and the low clink of metal as he filtered through the contents before pulling out a folded sheet of paper. “Here.” Amelia took it. “You can peruse that in your own time, Miss Havisham. We will meet again next week, if that suits, to discuss it. It shan’t take you long to read.”

“I do not think I am a very good pupil,” Amelia blushed, turning the paper over in her hands, nervously. It was folded a couple of times, but she was quite disturbed by how thick it felt between her fingers. Jaggers scoffed,

“Nonsense. You are the only student I would wish for.” Amelia laughed in self-deprecation. The compliments rolled off her like rainwater on the petals of a rose. Jaggers was glad of this. It meant they would not get overly attached. He could relieve himself in the bosom of a compliment, and she would think it mere flattery, and not at all the truth that it was.

“I do not see why you give me all this homework, and whenever my brother meets with you, he comes home with nothing!” Amelia laughed, rising from her seat, and straightening the folds of her skirt. Jaggers watched her hands work over the pale pink satin, and he swallowed. He could not tell her that it was not Arthur Havisham who required the education. As far as she was concerned, the brewery would go to him. It must remain that way until the day of Havisham’s death.

“Well, he is a far less able student, Miss Havisham,” Jaggers explained, teasingly, though not enough to make her understand, “The homework would do him no good.”

“I doubt he would even do it if you were to give it to him!” Amelia giggled, tucking the paper beneath her arm.

“You are damning of your brother,” he replied, with a dry smile.

“I do love him, dearly, but I think it would be far better if Papa were to leave the brewery to _me_ ,” Amelia said, turning her chin up whilst her lips curled in an elfish, smug grin. There was a glint in her eye, yet there was no bright light in the room. It was as if her pupil had caught a shard of metal and was holding it: still and stony. Jaggers felt his throat clench. If his training had taught him anything, it was to be used now. He must not let anything show.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I am far more hard-working than Arthur. And, though I am a woman, and therefore many would see me as unequipped to run a business, and, though in many things I am naïve and uneducated, I know that I could make a success of it. And I would certainly like to. It can be so frustrating to be a young woman, and to be thought of as incapable of anything but needlework and motherhood.”

Jaggers flushed with something raw and strange. Pride? How could he feel proud of this creature, who he hadn’t any responsibility in the making of? He could not justify the pride that now swelled in his chest. He steeled himself, and dared to reply,

“I think you would be an excellent successor to your father.”

It was this kind honesty, this earnest encouragement, that Amelia so valued in Mr Jaggers – and it was a quality she could find in no other person, or not in the same way. She trusted every word. He never lied to her. He never deceived her. He protected her, where necessary, and encouraged her when she felt helpless. He was not, to her, like any other friend. Their relationship was chameleonic in that way.

If it were a butterfly, it could not be pinned. There was no label to give to it. Uncategorised.

That is why it frightened Jaggers so. And why it excited Amelia.

“Oh, Mr Jaggers?” Amelia cried and turned around, suddenly, as she was walking towards the door to leave, “I forgot to ask you.” Amelia clawed at the back of her hand. “We are having a… a party. No, not a party. A dinner! And there may be a little dancing. It is for my birthday, you see. It is my birthday, coming up.”

“Ah!”

“Yes. And I meant to ask you if you would like to attend. I mean, I am inviting you, if you wish to accept,” she stammered. Mr Jaggers gave her a smile, and her hands fell free.

“I would be delighted to accept.”

“I will send you an invitation in the post. That is the way these things should be done, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose they should.”

“Good,” Amelia grinned. Her lopsided grin, full of shining teeth. “I am glad you can come. Thank you.”

“I do expect you to do your homework, though, Miss Havisham. Even if it is your birthday,” he said, in mock-seriousness. Amelia pursed her lips, whipped the paper out from beneath her arm, and presented it high into the air with aplomb.

“Of course, Mr Jaggers! This time next week!” She turned to leave, again, but stopped once more, turned, and whistled, “On one condition.”

“And what is that?” Mr Jaggers asked, indulging her, and seating himself behind the desk, picking up his glasses and putting them back on, like armour.

“You must do your homework.”

Jaggers chuckled,

“My homework? And what is my homework?”

“To practice your dance steps.” And with a small giggle, she swept her skirts, turned, and left the room, the door clicking shut behind her, and leaving Mr Jaggers in the dingy silence, with only the smell of her perfume lingering in his nostrils. Lavender. She could hardly have known what it was to flirt. She was acting on instinct. She could not have known the effect she had on him. She was a joy, and a curse.

Not in the office, he told himself. Not in the office.

He clenched his fist to stop his hand from shaking, and he had to consciously breathe in and out several times to force his heartbeat back to normality.

When Tulkinghorn called on him, his eyes were closed, and he leant back in his chair, and he complained faintly of a migraine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia Havisham's birthday.

“I have a present for you! Happy birthday!” Honoria Barbary cried, passing a square white paper-wrapped parcel to her friend. Amelia protested that she should not have, and that she did not deserve the kindness, and that she was so thankful to have a friend such as her. And, when she had loosed the strings, she pulled the paper back to reveal a gown, chartreuse in colour. “It would not be a birthday if you did not have a new dress to wear!”

“Oh! Honoria, it is beautiful!” Amelia dropped the wrapping to the floor and unfurled the gown, holding it aloft to inspect it with admiration. The bertha neckline and shining satin fabric were exactly to her taste. “Are you quite sure?”

“Positive. I picked it out especially for you. It is my gift. As long as you promise to wear it tonight,” Honoria explained, hurrying excitedly to the table to view the arrangements that were just now being prepared by a few servants filing in and out. The cutlery was being placed in neat lines and rows, all shined to perfection, and the bouquets had just been delivered.

“Of course, I will!” replied Amelia, still inspecting the dress in the light with awe and glee. “Oh, it is such an exquisite colour!”

“It is rather unusual, isn’t it? I thought it would suit you. You are always wearing extraordinary colours. I feel I can only ever carry off pinks!”

“Pink suits you, my dear Honoria!” Amelia giggled, placing the dress over the back of a chair, turning her friend around, taking her two hands and pressing them lovingly, tears prickling in her eyes. Honoria was wearing pink as they spoke; a sweet, raspberry pink, almost a red, but it complimented the blush on the young lady’s cheeks beautifully. Oh, she certainly did suit pink. It was a colour that seemed made for her. “I fear I do not suit pink. I wore pink to see Mr Jaggers, only last week, and I felt like a little girl.”

“Mr Jaggers?” Honoria said, crinkling her brow, but giving a faint and humoured smile. Her grip on her friend’s hands tightened. Amelia shook her head in a careless shrug of laughter, as if shaking cobwebs from her tresses, and she explained,

“He is giving me an education, currently, in my father’s business, pre-empting some share I may have in it someday.”

“Ah,” Honoria said, pulling her hands away, and moving up the table to look at the bouquets. She was just reaching a tentative finger across to brush it over the downy petals of an orange rose when Amelia said, quite casually,

“You can ask him all about it: he is coming tonight.”

“Mr Jaggers?” Honoria exclaimed, seizing her hand away, “Amelia, however did you convince him to come?”

Amelia was a little distracted by this sudden outburst from Honoria, and asked,

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Papa invites him to our soirees occasionally, out of politeness, and his close attachment with our family, but he has always declined. Every time. We all think him a frightful bore for it, I must say.”

“Oh, do not think so!” Amelia beseeched, flushing, and clasping her hands in front of her. There was a low cadence that became Amelia Havisham’s voice when she took to the defence of good intentions, a soft rise and fall, gently powerful and rich. “Mr Jaggers is reserved and, some may say, aloof – but his heart is in a good place, I have the evidence of it.”

“You seem sure of it, Amelia!”

“He is proving himself to be patient and very healthy company for me. And, even before he devoted himself to my instruction, he has been an honest man.”

“’Honest’, ‘patient’! He does not sound like the most exciting company!”

“No, he is not,” Amelia said, her cheeks turning pink through the vehemence of her defence. Honoria grew sheepish. “He is not exciting company, but I have never asked him to be such! Just as he has never asked me to be timid! And I have never asked you to be pragmatic!” This sudden outburst of emotion caught Amelia by surprise just as much as it did her friend – even a little more – and she stood for a moment in abject silence, her chest heaving over the top of her gown. Honoria felt a little guilty.

“Well, if you like him, Amelia.” Honoria walked to the sofa, and sat down on it. “I must say that I would rather hope to find a gentleman of more… rebellious inclinations.” Amelia, who was just at this moment taking a sip of port wine to ease her frustrated nerves, almost choked.

“I assure you that I have not ‘found’ anything in Mr Jaggers! My appreciation for him is unaffected, and not for hopes of an attachment with him!” she cried, spluttering as if she were not accustomed to the element of which she breathed. Honoria found Amelia’s sudden overthrow of concern for the man – as suddenly put upon as her previous vindication of his good and just qualities – just as puzzling, and just as revealing.

“I’m sorry, Amelia. Do forgive me. Terrorising you like this on your birthday! How wicked! Come, come, do tell me the contents of the bouquets!” Honoria pleaded, holding out a soft hand which clasped and unclasped, awaiting the other woman to take it. Amelia, a little vexed, sighed before taking the hand and being led on to the sofa. She went on to describe each and every flower, and she soon lost her colour, and had almost forgotten why she was so upset to begin with.

Honoria stayed at Satis House all the while before the guests began to arrive. The two ladies changed, and pinned each other’s hair into place, recounting stories and laughing as they did so. Honoria was glad to see that the vibrant green looked dashing indeed on Miss Amelia Havisham, and the latter was demanded of many twirls and turns for the former to see the dress in its full glory. The light was captured within it, and the effect was similar to that of the dawn’s light sweeping over orchard plains, and catching the lime trees with a lively glow. Honoria wore her pink, as usual, and – when stood together, as they so often were – the pair looked like the English rose: bloom and leaf. And the guests bustling in from the street outside were welcomed by the two girls, and would all remark on the picture of English beauty there to greet them.

Arthur Havisham and Mr Havisham were stood behind the girls, and were shaking hands as required.

When the fine hands of the clock signalled ten minutes past five o’clock, Mr Jaggers stood outside the gates of Satis House, and he knocked his cane on the pavement, looking the house up and down. There was an awful sinking feeling that knocked on his bones when looking at an area filled with fellow souls. He always resisted excessive communion. When he was forced to meet with clients, he did so in private meetings in the familiar corners of his office. If he could not, he would reluctantly draw himself into the Three Cripples where he would almost always find the client in question, brooding beside the fireplace with a tankard in their pale, shaking hands, bleary-eyed and pallid. He rarely bestowed his company to parties, or dinners, or – heaven forbid - _dances_. And, even the thought of this soiree was enough to make his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. He was glad that he was not one of those creatures prone to spasms or nervous fits or fainting spells or vices – but his physical reactions, though relatively minor, were troublesome to no end.

But he was here for Amelia Havisham, and he was loath to disappoint her.

He took his hat off at the door and passed it to a maid. She was pretty. Dark-haired, demure as a bride. There was a quiet joy that Jaggers took in observing the work of a pretty housemaid. Their calm composure, their fastidious frequenting, their shyness, and the soft patter of their feet, all of these were a forbidden delight to him. He took no refuge in the ostentation and the clatter of the lords and ladies of the house – but their servants!

If he were a romantic man – which, of course, he was not – he could have thought himself in love with a good deal of housemaids. In love. What a strange thing that was. To be in love and to love seemed words apart to Mr Jaggers, who could not have named himself a scholar in the affairs of love in the least. In love was to admire. Love was far more pressing.

The dark-haired maid carried off his hat, and his cane, and Mr Jaggers joined the procession towards the young lady to whom all people had gathered to celebrate for. Every eye he met was the eye of a client, it seemed, and every eye turned away from his as if scorched. A lawyer was feared in London. To even see a lawyer was an unlucky thing indeed. To see one at a party spelled disaster. But Mr Jaggers pulled himself into a straight line, and remained dignified until he reached Miss Havisham, and took the hand which she held for him.

“Mr Jaggers, I am so glad you could come,” she smiled. Mr Jaggers bowed slightly in reply, knowing that words were superfluous. Then, he turned his head to see the young Miss Barbary, youngest daughter of Mr Barbary. He knew that Miss Honoria Barbary was a fluttering thing of a girl and, besides that, he knew very little else, other than how her father doted on her. Miss Barbary and Miss Havisham did not seem – to Mr Jaggers’ uninformed mind – the likeliest friends. Miss Frances Barbary, in her apparent intelligence, seemed a far greater match for the young heiress. But, in truth, Mr Jaggers knew very little of the elder sister either. She _seemed_ the more sensible of the two and, for that, he was inclined to think favourably on her. But, then again, it would be ignorant of him to forget the streak of fun running through Miss Amelia’s blood. They certainly looked a picture together.

“Miss Barbary,” Jaggers said, bowing slightly to her, too, “I hope your family is well.” There was a sensitivity to Mr Jaggers’ voice that was as clear as the light of day to Amelia’s ear – could Honoria not hear it?

“Very well, thank you, Mr Jaggers!” Honoria blushed.

And, feeling the eyes burying into the back of his head as he talked to the hostess, he moved quickly along and into the dining room, where people were mingling before they were due to take their seats along the long table.

When the congregation was at last seated, Mr Jaggers found himself a few seats down from Miss Amelia Havisham, and opposite Mr Matthew Pocket, who had only recently returned to London for his cousin’s birthday, and was set to leave again very soon. The courses were all reasonably flavoursome, though Mr Jaggers was never quite taken in by the indulgence of food, and the company was tolerable, though he found himself rarely involved in the giving or receiving of information, but simply as an onlooker and a listener to the endeavours and tales of others. But this was as he would prefer it. He could even hear Miss Amelia Havisham’s stories, if he took the time to block the tedious words of those closer to him from his consciousness. And he watched her, once or twice, when he felt safe to do so.

What a magnificent colour her dress was.

After the food was finished and the majority of the plates were polished by greedy, fat hands, the group left for the floor, where dancing would take place. The inevitable eventuality of dancing. Mr Jaggers stole himself to the edge of the room, where he felt at a good enough distance to be safe from the whirls and twirls and foibles of a dancer’s life. It was in this position, leaning uneasily against the wall of the room, where Mr Havisham found him. A well-built but quickly decaying older man, with white hair and a grave look that betrayed the goodness of his heart. Large, judgemental, dark eyebrows loomed in Jaggers’ vision.

“How is she getting on, Mr Jaggers?” Mr Havisham asked, keeping his voice low, though it was unlikely to have been heard over the swell and trickle of the music, and the laughter and chatter of those around them. Mr Jaggers gave a low cough to clear his throat, and remarked, unaffectedly,

“Well, Mr Havisham, I am pleased to say. She is an intelligent young girl. She can be flighty, if you don’t mind my saying so, but that will wear away with age and experience. I am impressed with her.” By ‘flighty’, Mr Jaggers was calling reference to her flirtatious nature which – far from being a fundamental flaw in her capability of running a brewery – was proving, instead, a difficulty for Mr Jaggers in fulfilling his teachings.

“She is still rather young. But I have assigned this task to you, Mr Jaggers, as you are both a trusted family friend, and I know that she can learn from you in wisdom and competence.”

“You flatter me, sir.” Mr Jaggers became suddenly aware that he had caught the gaze of the young woman in question from across the room. He was hardly aware of having been looking at her in the first place, and had been unaware for a few moments of the returning of this look. She did not break it. She continued looking. And then she smiled. And Mr Jaggers tore his eyes away. “But I know how fond she is of you, sir. You have been her greatest teacher.”

Mr Havisham snorted a sad laugh.

“I do hope that she will be well. In the end.”

“She will be.” And this was as truthful as a lawyer could be.

Mr Jaggers remained, after Mr Havisham had left him, watching the young woman in silence. She danced very elegantly. If he were a man of dancing, he would feel honoured to take that hand of hers, hold it in the palm of his, and move with her, about the floor to the rise and fall of the music. It would seem a blessing indeed. And, if she would allow it, he could place his hand on the small of her back so that when she breathed he would feel the breath beneath his fingers pushing the ribcage out. And, if he were inclined to do so, he could feel her breath on his neck as she leant up during the waltz. But he was not a dancing man. So he would not allow it.

Amelia, after her first three dances, eventually summoned the courage (which was not too difficult to summon, after the port wine she had sipped with her dinner) to approach her lawyer and friend.

“It is not the custom, I know, for ladies to ask the gentlemen to dance, but I do hate to see you without a partner.”

“Your concern is humbling, Miss Havisham, and I thank you for it, but I am afraid I must decline.”

“Oh, but you promised that you would,” Amelia laughed, hearing the change of the music which would signal their dance together. He must hurry if he wants to dance, she thought. Mr Jaggers shook his head curtly, and replied,

“I assure you, Miss Havisham, I promised no such thing. I agreed to come, but I never said I would dance.”

Miss Havisham felt that any more pleas would be unbecoming of her position and her relationship with the man. So, she meekly smiled, turned her blushing cheeks side to side as if looking for another creature to spare her this awkward situation, and offered a stammered apology of sorts, half-accepting, half-regretful. Mr Jaggers sensed her unease. If he could have relieved it, he would have done, but he hadn’t the conviction to do so. Amelia wobbled, and then fell away, and found herself another partner, and danced uneasily to a tune she hardly heard.

And Mr Jaggers – suddenly feeling the pressing company too keenly, and feeling his presence like a hot coal on a carpet – quietly snuck out when he felt safe to do so, and walked home briskly, with wind in his footstep and a fire in his mind.

“Where has Mr Jaggers gone?” Honoria asked her friend, keeping her voice low, after a dance had concluded, and the hour was growing later. Amelia darted her eyes about in hope for a few moments, before her suspicions were confirmed.

“I think he found the company tiresome,” she muttered, loathing how Honoria’s assumptions seemed to have been proved correct. Miss Amelia Havisham found it immensely difficult to think badly of her friend and tutor – who had been so kind in educating her. But she also could not deny the stinging vexation that followed her like a shadow, and ate her up in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments/feedback are greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chill in the air and the heat of the office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating; life has been very busy. But this fic will be continued, slowly but surely. Thank you for your patience.

Going to the church on a Sunday morning, when the air was crisp and dry, and the clatter in the streets a mere muffled hum, was a sort of refuge for Mr Jaggers. He was not a god-fearing man, nor was he much of a believer, but the motivation came in the joy of a sit in the quiet and the pumping of an organ. And it was a rare public congregation in which he did not feel the press and barge of his own company upon the peace of mind of the room. When he entered the cold confines of the church, no one stirred even the slightest. And when he turned his eye on those around him, they would never return his glance, for their eyes were focused on the middle distance or the high wave of the rising altar. And if he were to sing, he would feel no shame in this. The church was a place free from the clamour of humanity. A higher plane, for want of a better expression, for that expression dictated far too much _mysticism_.

There was no mysticism about it – it was humanity, purely, at its most simple and uncorrupted. It was humanity shoved between the skin of a book, fixed at the spine, and held aloft.

So, two weeks after the dinner at Satis House in the celebration of young Miss Havisham’s birthday, Mr Jaggers found himself in the church on a brisk Sunday morning. And, on this morning, he happened to be seated in a pew a few rows behind the Havisham family and, when he tried to focus his eyes on the pulpit or the colours in the glass windows, he found that he could only see the back of Amelia Havisham’s head. And, when he sang – he may have been deluding himself – but he could have sworn he heard her voice above all others, trembling a little on the high notes, and untrained as she was in many things, but with a certain clarity that cannot be taught.

The church was a safe space, he told himself.

He took his cane in hand and he made his procession up the aisle and out of the large wooden doors at the back of the hall, and stood for a moment out in the air – which seemed to become colder as the day progressed rather than warmer as one would expect – putting his hat back on to his head, and his gloves back on to his hands.

“Mr Jaggers!”

He turned to greet Mr Havisham, with his two children by his side, and he shook the appropriate hands and gave the appropriate wishes and greetings and was in all things the picture of the family lawyer but, all the while, was slightly disturbed by Amelia Havisham’s apparent inability to look him in the eye. He felt bound to a similar aloofness. He bent his stubborn eyes from the searching of her face for a sympathetic look and made his gazes that of business and decorum to her father.

“Are you quite well, Mr Jaggers? You seem distracted.”

Good God. He was being talked to and he was too busy in his internal monologue to listen to the words of his employer.

“Uh – yes, Mr Havisham, I’m terribly sorry. It is the cold, I think.”

“I hope you are not coming down with an illness?” Mr Havisham queried.

“No, no,” he replied with a wry grin and a forbidden left-hand glance to the young woman. She seemed fascinated by the cobblestones. He would have hoped she would show some concern for his health. Should he have feigned more of an ailment? In the hope of getting a fleeting show of worry?

Oh, what folly! Mr Jaggers – _whatever are you becoming?_

“You are seeing Mr Jaggers today, isn’t that right, Amelia?” Mr Havisham said in a desperate attempt to break the silence that made the cold seem ever more bitter. Miss Havisham did not reply but turned a guilty gaze upwards. “If it is no problem for Mr Jaggers, you could walk straight to the office from here.” Mr Jaggers would have protested had his arm not been sharply skewered by the reluctant arm of Miss Amelia Havisham by her decided father. He hoped she could not feel the muscles of his arm tense. “Very good,” Mr Havisham said, as if talking for all involved, and he was soon pattering off, cane in hand, with Arthur at his side, leaving Miss Havisham and Mr Jaggers out in the cold, reluctantly holding one another’s arms and not daring to look at one another.

“Well, I-“ Jaggers began, without a thought of what to say, so the words failed him, and he said no more.

“Yes, well-“ Miss Havisham replied. She, too, had nothing more to say.

They would freeze if they stayed outside any longer.

“Shall we?”

“Yes,” she said, as if she had been waiting for him to ask.

As they walked, Mr Jaggers struggled to keep apace with her, her legs moved so rapidly and with such ardent strides. Her arm looped in his tugged and, like a dog, he followed at heel with a little wounded pride that he was swallowing down with the pants and gulps of his unfit breath. But soon – and much to the lawyer’s relief – they were coming up the path to the office and Mr Jaggers was more than obliging in unlocking the door and retreating happily to the hallway he knew very well.

It was a relief, amongst other things, to finally be out of the cold and he took great pleasure in slipping his greatcoat off his shoulders and not shivering at the consequence. He did shiver, however, when he helped Amelia Havisham out of her shawl, though not through the cold. Not cold.

He showed her into the office. The office no longer seemed a safe place to him. As she had done to the church, Amelia Havisham had – through no fault of her own – begun to defile. She had taken his office that was so precious to him and she had made it a place of secrecy and strange warmth. No longer frigid were the bookshelves, but tepid. No longer hard were the chairs, but pliant. No longer his, but _theirs_.

He waited for her to sit, and watched – almost voyeuristically, he thought later – as she arranged her gloves on her lap and the various folds of material that made up her skirts. He deigned to sit, too.

“I have the product of the past fortnight, here… and a projection for the following fortnight. Somewhere, I am sure I have the projections for the fortnight gone by… bear with me. It’s always a good idea to check the accuracy of projections. See if we are running to schedule, meeting quotients and whatnot. Running ahead of projections can be just as damaging as slacking, you see, there are finite materials and they must be rationed effectively. Bear with me… I know it’s here somewhere… and, yes. Here we are. If you’d like to take a look at these, Miss Havisham, and let me know what you observe. We can discuss it together.” And just as soon as this soliloquy had ceased, Mr Jaggers rose from his chair as if plagued with itches or cramps and he paced restlessly to the other end of the room where he mused over a bookcase. Oh, he was finding her tedious today! Not her, persay, but he was finding his own reaction to her utterly infuriating! He hated seeing her so distant but could not bear to discover himself so moved by it! What business was it of his that she did not show an interest in him on this cold morning in April? She owed him nothing, for God’s sake!

She was a young woman of vigour and youth and he – he was a lawyer decaying in a tomb-like library.

But, oh God, how he wished she would look at him as if he were a younger man with a life to owe her. Just as she had done at the party. Where he had turned her down.

_Oh._

He turned very suddenly on the heels of his shoes, holding a book that he had not looked at, and cried,

“Oh, Miss Havisham, please do not tell me that you are feeling dejected after I refused to dance with you… a fortnight ago!”

A little startled, Miss Havisham blinked at him a moment. Her mouth opened and closed with no noise at all. Mr Jaggers felt a little guilty at his impertinence. He could have been a little more tactful. Stubborn emotions.

“No! No, of course I am not! I- I… well, yes. But, really, it is more through embarrassment at being denied than anger at your denial,” she spluttered.

“Well, I… I did not mean to upset you, Miss Havisham,” Mr Jaggers said, giving a rare sympathetic smile. It seemed he never smiled to anyone but Amelia. The rest of the world was occasionally offered a wry grin. But a smile was hers entirely. “I do not refuse to dance out of spite, it is just not a practise I have ever found myself partial to, that is all.

“Yes of course.” Her words were clumsily delivered over her two clasped hands. “I apologise, Mr Jaggers. I sound like a little girl.”

“No…”

“It is awful, I think, not to have grown up. I am so close to Father that I still act like a child, sometimes.” Amelia was speaking without knowledge of her company. Her words were for her own ears. “I know I shall have to grow up before long, and I will. Life is not all dancing and games!” she laughed.

“You are still young, Miss Havisham. You are allowed a little misguidedness,” he explained but Amelia shook her head in fret.

“I have made a fool of myself.”

“Miss Amelia,” Jaggers began, “I have never had a particular fondness for the more jovial things in life, that is true. But I think it is a failing in myself, not in the activities. If I were to give you any advice, it would be to focus on your happiness.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes,” he muttered. Amelia thought there was something sad behind his voice. “But, please, Miss Havisham, if you would look at the papers...” She hadn’t the time to reflect on it now. She tucked the thought away, and began to leaf through the papers, listening in silence to the rise and fall of Mr Jaggers’ breath behind her back, beside the bookcase.

Miss Amelia, however, found herself increasingly restless whilst her eyes’ focus on the pages began to muffle and blur until her gaze scoured endlessly over letters to which she could string no meaning together. He would surely ask her questions, she thought, with some fear. She must understand something, or she would look like a little fool – more of a little fool than she had already proved herself – and he would think her incapable. Incapability was such an awful way to be thought of, Miss Amelia thought; particularly from someone whose capability seemed to be worn as militiamen wear medals. If he were a redcoat, he would be the brashest in the legion.

And she, poor monster, would have a bear lapel.

_Read! Read, Miss Amelia!_ The protestations of her mind fell on blind eyes as the rolling of her stomach began to thicken.

“It is particularly hot in here, Mr Jaggers?” Amelia breathed, feeling her skin prickle. She was sure her cheeks must be blazing red. Mr Jaggers remained unmoved, brushing against the wooden shelves of the bookcase with a firmly pressed sleeve.

“I am not hot, Miss Havisham.”

Miss Amelia stirred in her seat.

“Oh… I am feeling a little stifled.”

“Are you quite well, Miss Havisham?” asked Mr Jaggers, becoming aware of the woman’s grey sheen.

“Oh, yes. I am just feeling a little hot, that is all.”

“Miss Havisham, you are looking rather pale.”

“I might just step out into the air for a moment, sir.” She rose with an indefinite action.

“Of course.” He approached her with an arm to hold.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Jaggers… I… oh…” And it seemed in an instant her body was too much weight for her to bear and like a tall poplar fastened hard at the root she swayed in some formless wind and time seemed to stand still for poor Mr Jaggers whose mind was, at this moment, trying desperately to catch up with the sight of his eyes.

His fingers had caught Miss Havisham’s waist before he had mind to think to do it, and the palms of his hands smoothed across the curve of her corset to gain a purchase on her form which only now seemed so small to him. Her hand skidded across the broad shoulder of his jacket and stopped at a grip beside his neck with her little finger brushing at his jaw which was only a little rough from a morning’s missed shave. Her hip had folded into his thigh and the locking of his knee held her aloft as he deftly moved to the chair where he placed her down. He did not leave her side nor did his hands leave the cinch of her waist but they roamed a little with the left hand dipping behind to check the comfort of her back and the right hand checking the pace of breath in her lungs. He had not yet mind to think of the impropriety, only to think of the grey pallor that poor Miss Havisham’s face had suddenly adopted.

“Miss Havisham?” he breathed as her eyes drooped. He fled to his desk where he poured a glass of water which he quickly returned with and placed gently into her hands which he soon realised were too weak to bring her drink to her lips. So, he held it, instead, and brought the glass to her mouth where he carefully poured a sip into her mouth. “I will call for a doctor.”

“No!” she cried, lunging forward in such a violent movement that Jaggers feared she would make herself pass out. “Call for my father. I wish to go to Satis House.”

He needed no more instruction but nodded and sent a message urgently to Satis House. Mr Havisham’s daughter had fallen quite suddenly ill and needed immediate attention.

She remained very still on the seat, swaying and swallowing with deep gulps. He remained close by her side all the while and, when her carriage arrived, he escorted her closely and offered to travel with her, only dissuaded by her feeble but insistent denial. She climbed into the carriage, lurched upon the bucking of the horses, and was carried away in the cold air and Mr Jaggers was left by the roadside, a little queasy, and more than a little unsure of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Miss Havisham! Bed-bound: how will she even continue her education?

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write a multi-chapter fic for these two. So, here it is. Comments etc. are very much appreciated - and thank you for reading.


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